Our Class Puzzle

Use tagboard to create a large jigsaw puzzle. Put each child's name on a different puzzle piece. When kids arrive on the first day of school, instruct them to find the pieces of the puzzle with their names on them and to draw pictures on of their favorite things to do. Later in the day, instruct students to find one classmate with whom their puzzle piece connects; kids should do this activity without talking. When they "connect" with a classmate, they sit down and talk quietly about themselves until everybody has "connected." Kids can use the pictures they drew as prompts as they talk about themselves. If there are an uneven number of students, one group might have three students in it. As students introduce themselves to their partners, go around the room and tape the pairs of pieces together. Next, instruct each pair of students to find another pair with whom their puzzle pieces connect. Those groups of four students introduce themselves as you go around the room and tape together the groups' puzzle pieces. Eventually, you will have one big puzzle with all of the children's names on it. You might talk about how a puzzle is incomplete if one piece of the puzzle is missing, how all the students fit together as a team like pieces of a puzzle, and how you will be the tape that holds the pieces together all year long. Laminate the puzzle and display it all year.
Ellen Gleitman, Brooke Elementary School, Limerick, Pennsylvania